Wikipedia:WikiProject Cetaceans

Capitalisation of common names

Common names of cetaceans are written in sentence case. That is, the names are not capitalised except for the first word of a sentence and any proper names that are part of the common name. An example of the general use is bowhead whale. Examples of the inclusion of a proper name are North Pacific right whale (where "North Pacific" is a placename) and Bryde's whale (where Bryde was a person's name).

Prior to 15 February 2010 the common names were often written in title case, with every word capitalised. Most article titles have now been changed to sentence case per Talk:Bowhead whale#Requested move, but the text of some articles may still need to be changed. Discussion leading to the February 2010 policy change is archived at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cetaceans/Archive 4#Capitalisation.

Taxobox

Each species article should use a {{Taxobox}} (usage instructions) to list standard information about that species.

Images

A good image of an individual of the species in question should go in the {{Taxobox}}, but other descriptive images in-lined at relevant parts of the article are great. A size-comparison diagram should accompany it (as the image2 argument).

The JPEG format is preferable for photographs and PNG or SVG for diagrams. For public domain resources try the American National Oceanic and Atomospheric Administration, particularly the National Marine Fisheries Historic Image Collection.

Range maps

The basic template map is the world map without country borders. Others can be found at Wikipedia:Blank maps.

The blue colour shows where the species may be found and white is where it is absent.

• The grey colour has R:205 G:195 B:204 (#cdc3cc).
• The blue colour has R:0 G:0 B:255 (#0000ff)

Some maps give the range of multiple species and separate the two with different colours. There is no standard for this yet.

When editing a map, save it at full-quality so that no blurring occurs at the edge of the countries. Blurring makes further editing of the map more difficult because the "fill" function of many image editing programs doesn't work with the blurred edges.

What to include

Cetacean species articles can contain:

• a short introduction on the species, such as whether it is baleen or toothed
• physical characteristics such as their birth and adult sizes and weights for both sexes, colour, callosities, fin placement, size and shape, and how one may distinguish between that and other species
• biological elements such as life expectancy, gestation period, lactation period, speed, what they eat and interaction with other species
• population and distribution, changes thereof over time and conservation status
• human relationship with the species such as whaling, display in aquariums and whale-watching
• the discoverer/describer of the species, scientific names, taxonomy debates and English meaning of the scientific name

This list is neither exhaustive nor its items appropriate for every article. Some information is probably best described in an article outside a particular species e.g. baleen.

Free pictures

The NOAA has some great cetacean photos on the web. It is a U.S. Federal Government department, so its photos are public domain. They're on many websites and can be tricky to find through searches. Here are some examples:

• http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/read/protspp/RightWhale/page3.html
• http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/mammals/cetaceans/